FROM the balcony of his home in the
prestigious suburb of Saint Cloud,
Jean-Marie Le Pen has a sweeping
view of Paris, that takes in the Eiffel
Tower, Montparnasse, and the white Sacre
Coeur church in Montmarte, at the northern
edge of the city. The big three-story
house is surrounded by a green metal
fence. Nothing about it would arouse any
curiosity; there is no guard posted at the
entrance, and if there are any security
cameras, they are very well hidden. The
only obvious nod to security is a standard
intercom at the gate.

A young man in a dark suit opens the
front gate. We walk along the edge of an
expansive green lawn. Two statues of black
butlers dressed in bright green and
holding lanterns flank the front door.
Between them are two very large straw
baskets, of the kind used for pets. Their
unusual size piques my interest. "Oh
that," the young man says. "Those are for
Monsieur Le Pen's two Dobermans. They're
out in the yard now."

Statues of Joan of Arc fill the
house; they can be found in every corner -
some on horseback, others in gold, silver
and in marble. In the first-floor room
that serves as Le Pen's study, an oil
painting in a polished wood frame draws a
visitor's attention. The portrait shows a
smiling Le Pen (several decades younger)
against a black background. He is wearing
a black patch over his left eye.

"It was about 40 years ago, during an
election campaign," he explains.
"Political rivals attacked me. I was
savagely beaten. I was kicked in the face
and I lost my eye as a result."

His opponents might see the story of
the patch as epitomizing his life. They
say he is a racist provocateur, someone
who loves a fight, who stirs up strife and
contention; a despised and dangerous man
who went looking for a violent dust-up and
lost his eye as a consequence. His
contrasting version of events fits in well
with his regular complaints of being
politically slandered, of the deep-rooted
misunderstandings and about systematic
abuse from the establishment.

Even the more jocular aspect that he
seeks to ascribe to the whole episode
perfectly suits his personality: "On one
occasion, a female political rival claimed
that I was looking at her with a `hard
stare.' I replied: `But of course, madam.
You are looking at my glass eye,'" he says
with a boisterous laugh.

An encounter with Le Pen can be a bit
of a culture shock. The man is blessed
with a rare, intoxicating charisma. Not
for nothing did one Jewish political
activist in Paris tell me that, if it
weren't for the anti-Semitic overtones, he
might well have been persuaded by Le Pen
and ended up casting his vote for the man.
He looks different from up close. His
features are softer. His eyes (including
the artificial one) are bright. He is
wearing a black suit and a blue and gray
striped tie, with a matching handkerchief
in his jacket pocket. He continuously
breaks into raucous laughter that all the
other people in the room find
infectious.

Le Pen has good reason to smile. In
1998, his National Front experienced a
major crisis. His second-in-command,
Bruno Megret, stepped down and
founded a competing party. In France, talk
of a collapse of the extreme right was
rife. The media abandoned Le Pen. He was
practically forgotten. Yet, in recent
weeks, he has gained surprising momentum.
His support in the polls stands at 13
percent. He has passed the Trotskyite
Arlette Laguiller and the
nationalist-leftist Jean-Pierre
Chevenement and established himself as
"the third man": the person whose
statements and voters could determine the
identity of the next president of France
in the upcoming presidential elections,
the first round of which will be held just
two days from now, on April 21.

Anti-Semitism
in France? There's no such
thing

These days, Le Pen is trying to portray
himself as more moderate in an effort to
distance himself from the scandals of the
past. He is still an avowed opponent of
immigration. He still holds extreme
nationalist, Euro-phobic and anti-American
views, but he is careful to avoid saying
anything that could get him pinned once
again with the anti-Semitic label and tie
him to the current wave of attacks in
France. He watches the anti-Semitic events
from afar and agrees with the consensus
that says they are an import of the
conflict in the Middle East.

"There has definitely been a rise in
anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic acts in the
past year and a half," he says. "Curses
and graffiti have given way to attacks and
incitement. It's all an outgrowth of
what's happening in the Middle East now.
The height of the flames depends on how
the conflict develops, on the parties'
readiness to reach a compromise."

It is very comfortable for Le Pen to
observe all the anti-Semitic incidents
from the sidelines, explains Jean Daniel,
editor of the weekly Le Nouvel
Observateur. He no longer needs to
sully himself. The "Arabs" are doing the
job for him, say other analysts. They are
"the real anti-Semites" and, at the same
time, they are earning the public's
hatred. Moreover, says the analysts, Le
Pen is killing two birds with one stone:
He believes the Muslim immigrants are "a
grave phenomenon," perhaps the biggest
problem facing France at the start of the
21st century. "There is a general problem
of gangs that live in the suburbs of the
big cities. They are using the events
[in the Middle East] as
ideological cover for their actions," he
says.

Gangs?

"There is an Islamic population in
France, most of which comes from the North
African countries. Though some may have
French citizenship, they don't have the
French cultural background or sociological
structure. They operate according to a
different logic than most of the
population here. Their values are
different from those of the
Judeo-Christian world. Not long ago, they
spat at the president of the republic.
They booed when the national anthem was
played at a soccer game [in Paris,
between the national teams of France and
Algeria]. These elements have a
negative effect on all of public security.
They are strengthened demographically both
by natural reproduction and by
immigration, which reinforces their
stubborn ethnic segregation, their
domineering nature. This is the world of
Islam in all its aberrations."

Could "classic" anti-Semitism join with
the "new" anti-Semitism in France?

"I have no idea what `classic
anti-Semitism' is. I'm not familiar with
this term. I don't know where it comes
from and what connection it has to France
and what is occurring here. There wasn't
anti-Semitism in France. An isolated
incident can always happen. When two
drivers curse each other on the road, and
one of them happens to be a Jew, you can't
define that as anti-Semitism. In recent
years - before the intifada - there were
three or four incidents of anti-Semitism a
year, and that's out of 18 million crimes
and violations of the law."

There has never been anti-Semitism in
France? Aren't you forgetting some things?
What about the Dreyfus Affair?

"The Dreyfus Affair is an exceptional
case. It's true that here and there you
can find some dregs of anti-Semitism, but
the situation is the same in every
country. After all, you're not exactly a
nation like all the other nations. You are
unique, if only because you are such an
ancient people, and because of the way you
are spread all over the world and your
obvious success in many fields. But, in
all honesty, anti-Semitism in France has
always remained on a minimal level, at the
verbal level only. It never went as far as
pogroms."

And in the Vichy period?

"Vichy is a case unto itself. The Vichy
government was under occupation and
carried out the orders of the German
occupier. In French politics, there isn't
a single anti-Semitic party, from the
political-ideological standpoint."

Do you agree with Jacques
Chirac's 1995 statement about France's
responsibility for the crimes of the Vichy
government?

"No. France was not responsible for
this criminal policy. France was an
occupied country, a country that
surrendered and was left without the right
to choose. Therefore, to be fair, you
cannot say that it was a willing partner
in this policy. On this I agree with De
Gaulle [who viewed France as a
`resistance country' - A.P.], and with
practically all the French leaders aside
from Jacques Chirac. I am sure that he
made this statement for electoral reasons.
It was a showy move designed to win
sympathy in certain circles."

Which circles?

"In this case, Jewish circles. In a
successful book that was published
recently ["L'homme qui ne s'aimait
pas" - "The Man Who Didn't Love
Himself"], Eric Zemmour, a
journalist from Le Figaro, quotes
President Chirac as saying after his
declaration of French responsibility for
Vichy crimes: `I hope the Jews will stop
pestering me from now on.'"

Do you consider Chirac's declaration a
historic mistake?

"Yes. You cannot speak on behalf of a
nation when you have no mandate to do so.
You also cannot speak on a nation's behalf
about things that happened in the past. He
can express his personal opinion, but not
in the name of France. It's no coincidence
that not one of Chirac's predecessors,
including De Gaulle - the great fighter
against Vichy - did not make such a
statement. I'm always suspicious of people
who repent of other people's sins."

In the past, there were Nazi
collaborators in your party. Has there
been a deliberate change in the party, or
have those people simply died out?

"I don't think it is accurate to say
that the movement was founded or run by
Nazi collaborators. First of all, my
influence in the party has always been
decisive and I have never compromised on
these things. In the movement itself,
there was no mention of fascism or
national-socialism. In my speeches, I
always condemned communism,
national-socialism and fascism.
Incidentally, I define all of them as
leftist movements that were spawned by the
French Revolution. The only reason that
our movement was pegged with the extremist
label is because of our loyalty to the
principle of `French Algeria' and our
opposition to the policy of separation
from Algeria, which De Gaulle
instituted.

"There was no reason to label us as
anti-Semitic. No reason at all. I do not
know one person in the National Front who
committed even the most minor hostile act
against a Jewish person or Jewish
property. As for me, even though I have
been accused of anti-Semitism countless
times, no one has ever heard me make
anti-Semitic statements or engage in
anti-Semitic behavior. There just are
people, organizations, that need an
adversary and they want the public to
believe that this adversary is
dangerous."

Xenophobe
or anti-Semite?

Is Le Pen anti-Semitic? Surprisingly,
observers do not have an unequivocal reply
to this question. For Jean Daniel, he is
"a nationalist who hates foreigners, but
is not necessarily anti-Semitic." Theo
Klein, a former leader of the Jewish
community in France, tends to concur: "Le
Pen is a xenophobe first and foremost. His
attitude toward Jews is a product of his
theory that only someone who was born in
France, and has no other affiliation, is
French." Noted commentator Dominique
Moisi says that any change in Le Pen
is solely tactical. "Since crime is the
main issue in the elections, and since
this is `his' issue, he can portray
himself as the expert and fully exploit
the `I told you so' tactic by calling on
the public to vote for the `original' and
not for poor imitations. He no longer
needs to make anti-Semitic statements, but
fundamentally, he is still an
anti-Semite."

Pierre-Andre Taguieff, who has
closely studied the National Front and
published a number of books about the
party and about racism in France, says the
picture is somewhat complex: "Le Pen's
electorate is definitely the most
anti-Jewish. According to polls published
at the beginning of April, about 52
percent of his supporters are wary of
Jews. Le Pen has to take note of this
statistic. He also certainly identifies
with the conspiracy view held by 34
percent of the French, who feel that the
Jews have too much power, that they
control politics and manipulate it to suit
their purposes."

Yet Taguieff, who recently published a
best-seller about the "new anti-Semitism"
in France, is not quick to call Le Pen an
anti-Semite: "It's very hard to say. I'm
convinced that his ideal is a France
without Jews and North Africans. But no
one has ever been able to identify him
unequivocally as an anti-Semite. The
anti-racist and anti-fascist circles in
France tend to exaggerate their legal
victories against him and to forget those
in which he emerged triumphant. Overall,
you could say it is a draw."

His wealth of
past statements do not leave much room
for doubt. The biggest scandal arose in
wake of a 1987 interview in which he
was asked about the Nazi gas chambers:
"I'm not saying that the gas chambers
didn't exist. I couldn't see them
myself. I haven't devoted any special
study to the subject, but I believe it
is just a detail in the history of
World War II." When asked to elaborate
about this "detail" in 1997, Le Pen
explained: "If you take a thousand-page
book about World War II, the
concentration camps would take up two
pages and the gas chambers would take
up 10 to 15 lines. That's what I call a
detail."

He referred to the former socialist
minister Michel Durafour as
"Durafour Crematoire," and described
Jewish television star Anne
Sinclair as "a juicy kosher butcher."
When asked directly by journalists whether
he was an anti-Semite, he responded: "I
don't like Chagall and my favorite
composer is Wagner. Does that make
me anti-Jewish?"

To return to the question of the
so-called "new anti-Semitism." Some say
that the French government is closing its
eyes to the problem for electoral reasons.
How big a part does the Arab vote play in
these elections?

"I don't think there is such a thing as
the `Arab vote' in France. The residents
of the suburbs who are responsible for the
violent incidents don't take part in the
elections at all. The French government is
simply fleeing from responsibility. It is
declining to grapple with the violent
activity. It fears that tackling it would
heighten the violent atmosphere and so it
is preventing the security forces from
intervening. This is a very risky approach
because you cannot retreat indefinitely:
In the end, it won't be possible to put
off a response, and by then it will have
to be at a much higher level of violence
than if it were done today."

Do you agree with claims that Israeli
accusations of French anti-Semitism were
meant to encourage French Jews to move to
Israel and perhaps to also keep France
from playing a role in the Middle
East?

"I think that it is the Americans, more
than Israel, who wish to keep France from
playing a role in the Middle East. In my
judgement, there is a basic popular
sympathy for Israel in France, but the
demonstrative sympathy tends to go to the
other side. In the current conflict, the
French media is pro-Arab for two reasons:
The large Arab and Islamic presence in
France combined with the weight of the
billion Muslims in the world, and the fact
that Sharon is a rightist. The hostility
would be less if a leftist prime minister
was pursuing exactly the same policy."

Are you talking about just the
media?

"I'm talking about the government and
the French intelligentsia, too. The
government would have preferred not to
take a stand, but the constant presence of
the Israeli-Arab conflict on our
television screens made it an issue that
could no longer be avoided. The result is
that you are now experiencing what we
experienced in the war in Algeria: The
Israeli government says that it is a
victim of terrorist activity, but this
activity is less visible than the military
strikes. I belonged to the 10th paratroop
division that was ordered to destroy the
terror in Algiers. This was after a series
of terror attacks against civilians in
public centers. The division did wipe out
terror, and it didn't do this by being
gentle with the terrorists. A war on
terror is a brutal thing."

Does it include torture?

Le Pen's strong, deep voice fills the
room; he is almost shouting, and
frequently waves his hands. Every now and
then he grimaces, and it seems as though
he has forgotten he is giving an interview
in the privacy of his own home. At these
moments, which are relatively rare, the Le
Pen we know from his public speeches comes
to the surface - this is the Le Pen who
ignites the masses. At this point, he
loses his calm demeanor. It's clear that
the subject of torture is a sensitive
one.

"Torture, torture - What is torture?
You have to define for me what torture
is."

What is your definition of torture?

"I don't know. I would define it as `a
series of violent acts that cause physical
injury to individuals, actions that
destroy the personality and leave traces.'
Police and military interrogations do not
fit this definition of torture. What's
surprising is that the people who fought
against torture here are the communists.
And the communists are the ones who used
to practice systematic mass torture in
their own countries. The suffering caused
by the terrorists is the real torture. The
struggle against terrorists sometimes
requires secrecy and it has its own rules.
The enemy must not be allowed the
advantage that permits him to plant bombs
when and where he wants. In this struggle,
everyone must carry his own burden."

ON one wall of his home is a large
portrait of a younger Le Pen dressed in a
white uniform. His shirt is decorated with
paratroop wings and various medals. The
painter dedicated his work "to Jean-Marie
Le Pen, who is loyal to France." Loyalty
to the homeland is certainly a supreme
virtue in Le Pen's book. It is directly
related to his justification of torture:
Everyone must carry his own burden, he
says.

In 1987, the satirical weekly Le
Canard Enchaine wrote that Le Pen
himself was an active participant in
torture in Algeria. The Liberation
newspaper later published testimony of
Algerian torture victims who described his
actions, which, they said, included
beatings, kickings, floggings with whips
and chains, submersions and electric
shocks. Le Pen, who claimed that his
reputation had been damaged, sued both
newspapers for slander and lost (though
Le Canard Enchaine eventually lost
in the appeals court). Today, it seems
that he does not wish to recall any
details.

You were accused of having personally
taken part in torture in Algeria.

"Me? I won in all the trials on this
subject. All the people who made these
claims were denounced."

In other words, you proved that it
wasn't true?

"Yes, certainly. Actually, no - I
didn't have to prove that it wasn't true.
We live under the rule of law here. The
burden was on the accusers to prove their
claims. Also, if I'm not mistaken, the
Supreme Court in Israel more or less gave
legal approval for ... let's not call it
torture, which would just play into the
terrorists' hands. Let's call it `tough
interrogations.'"

On the conflict in the Middle East, do
you support a French mediation initiative,
would you prefer a European initiative, or
to leave mediation to the Americans?

"All the efforts at mediation are not
effective. I wonder if international
influences might be harmful to
negotiations, if they aren't pouring fuel
on the fire. There is a need for a direct
understanding between Israel and the
Palestinians. I recognize that it is an
exceedingly difficult situation: Israel
feels threatened, because it does not have
strategic depth. At the same time, its
settlement policy is in doubt. The
settlements are perceived as an attempt to
annex occupied territory. To be honest, I
wouldn't want to be in Mr. Sharon's
place - and even less in Mr.
Arafat's place (he bursts into
laughter). It's a terrible situation. Even
when they are supported by the West, the
Israelis are still just several million
versus a billion Muslims. Fortunately,
there will never be Islamic unity. They're
all different from one another and hostile
to each other, thank God.

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is
given totally disproportionate coverage.
It's a kind of permanent theater, an
endless violent movie that works more on
the emotions than on reason."

Should the Israeli government have kept
cameras out of the territories?

"That's the problem. We live in a world
of entertainment. Cameras are everywhere
now. Everything is done before the open
eyes of the citizens of the world and
these eyes don't always understand what
they see. I think that all the countries
in the world that were in a state of war
used censorship. To conduct a war before
the cameras, before the eyes of people who
are sitting in their armchairs 1,500
kilometers away, is a big impediment.
That's why I call it theater."

Can you understand the decision of the
reservists in Israel who refused to fight
in the territories?

"As a former officer in the Foreign
Legion, I think that discipline is an
army's main source of strength. What's
happening [in Israel] is very
serious. As soon as the Israeli people
ceases to stand behind the Israeli army,
the battle is lost."

Would you consider them traitors?

"I think that during war, you can't
evade the difficult burden of war
discipline."

Do you think the military campaign that
Sharon is waging in the territories is
justified?

"This is the policy that he declared.
He is not betraying the commitments that
he made. He said from the beginning, `I
will wage war,' and he is waging a war
with all the risks that involves. History
will show if he was right or wrong."

Can you understand the complaints in
Israel about the "hypocritical" European
reaction?

"Certainly. After all, I got a similar
reaction during the war in Algeria, when I
served in General Massu's 10th
division. We were called upon to fight the
terrorism of the FLN (the Algerian
nationalist movement that fought against
French colonialism). The intelligentsia at
home criticized our actions. It's very
easy to criticize from the armchair in the
living room. I completely understand the
State of Israel, which is seeking to
defend its citizens."

Muslims
and other foreigners

What is your opinion of the war in
Afghanistan and of statements like that of
Italian Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi, who spoke of a "culture
war"?

"That phrase is in fashion these days.
The most worrisome thing about the new
Islam is the demographic data. This means
it doesn't have to resort to military
means to take over a country. In France,
there are six million Muslim citizens who
are recent arrivals. They entered in
civilian dress, in jeans. They'd never let
six million people with weapons enter our
territory. But a person in jeans can
become a soldier. If, despite their French
citizenship, these Muslims feel an
affiliation with another entity, they
naturally become suspect in the eyes of
those who one day will be compelled to
confront them."

Do you see the Muslims in France as
"six million soldiers"?

"Today, entire areas in France are
closed even to the security forces.
Sociological studies prove that potential
rioters dominate in these areas. The drug
trade and gang violence thrive in these
places, maybe religious ideology, too. A
propos this subject, I'll mention the
complex problem of Israeli Arabs: The
problem with Islam lies in its incredible
demographic momentum. Over the next 20
years the population in four areas in the
Mediterranean and Middle East - Turkey,
Iran, Egypt and the Maghreb - will grow
from 60-100 million inhabitants. They
ought to be thought of as superpowers.
Let's hope that they will be pacifistic,
but this is in no way a sure thing. This
is why we must protect our interests, our
territory and our heritage. In this
context, I prefer a regime like that of
Saddam Hussein to, say, Saudi
Arabia. The Ba'ath regime is secular and
even permissive toward other religions.
Saudi Arabia is massively funding the
spread of Islam. It, rather than Iraq,
should be viewed as a dangerous movement
of conquest."

Moisi describes Le Pen-ism as a unique
phenomenon of the radical right: "He
combines pro-Israeli and even pro-Zionist
attitudes with anti-Jewish attitudes, and
anti-Islamic attitudes with certain
pro-Arab attitudes." Taguieff says that Le
Pen's internal contradictions are also
expressed in the sympathy he showed in the
early 1990s for the fundamentalist Islamic
Salvation Front in Algeria, which fought
the outgoing FLN regime; it is also
evident in his nostalgia for French
imperialism versus his opposition to
Israeli settlements and the concept of the
Greater Land of Israel.

The United States is apparently
planning an attack on Iraq. How should
France respond?

"A war on Iraq is nothing more than a
war for American material interests.
During the Gulf War, I derided all those
who portrayed Iraq as the fourth most
powerful army in the world. It was
ridiculous: To be one of the world's most
powerful armies, you have to manufacture
arms and ammunition. Iraq was crushed, its
army was completely destroyed and the
sanctions policy caused hundreds of
thousands of people to die of
starvation.

"The problem with the Americans is that
their disproportionate power makes them
undertake policies that aren't always
balanced and well-considered, and
therefore dangerous. Today, there is
worldwide tendency to dance to the tune of
the powerful. I, on the other hand, am a
French patriot concerned with the
interests of France. Am I supposed to go
crazy with admiration for the Americans
just because they are Americans?"

Do you condone the Israeli action
against the Iraqi nuclear reactor?

"Yes, of course. That was an act of
prevention. True, it doesn't conform to
international law, but in such a
situation, there is no need to use
it."

A romance with neofascism

A photographic biography edited by his
daughter, Yan Marechal, says: "Le
Pen always had especially warm relations
with his Italian colleagues," who included
Giorgio Almirante, founder of the
neofascist movement MSI. On another page,
Franz Schoenhuber, the former
leader of Germany's radical right
Republican party who served in the Waffen
SS during the war, is described as "a true
friend of Le Pen. Much more than just a
partner."

"Le Pen has very close ties with the
radical right in Europe," says
Pierre-Andre Taguieff. "For 15 years, Le
Pen has been openly embraced by
practically all the xenophobe nationalists
and anti-Semites in Europe."

Le Pen would prefer to downplay these
facts. "I have no connection with
Haider's party in Austria. I only
spoke with Csurka (the anti-Semitic
leader in Hungary) once." He professes to
have a hard time recalling the name of the
anti-Semitic leader of the Greater Romania
party, Vadim Tudor: "I haven't seen
him in three years," he says, and then
immediately says something different.

In the past, you were linked with Franz
Schoenhuber and his Republican party in
Germany.

"Schoenhuber did serve in the Waffen
SS, but there are a million others like
him in Germany. After the war, he ran the
television network in Munich, served as a
member of parliament and headed the
Republican party. His first wife was a
Jew. So he wasn't an anti-Semite. In any
case, this party has disappeared.
Schoenhuber retired and I have no
connection with them."

Do you have any connection with the NPD
[the neo-Nazi party in
Germany]?

"No. I don't keep track of them or of
their thinking and ideology."

In the confrontation between the German
government and the NPD, whom do you
support?

"I don't have any opinion, because I
don't know what struggle we're talking
about. I'm concerned only with France and
its problems."

This struggle you say you know nothing
about concerns outlawing the party.

"I am against such banning. Democracy
is a framework for releasing natural
tensions - whether social, political or
economic. It wouldn't be wise to make
martyrs out of people with such
ideas."

You often talk about freedom of speech
and expression. You even seem to be
advocating unlimited freedom of speech.
Where does the boundary lie?

"The struggle against certain ideas
must be made by confronting them with
other ideas."

Including the glorification of
Hitler, or Stalin? Do you
consider that acceptable?

"There are people who do this. They
should be allowed to speak and they should
be contended with. I do not see any danger
of a conference being held in Paris where
Hitler or Stalin supporters would gather.
Today, there are Trotskyites and
Islamists. They also must be allowed
freedom of expression. If their expression
is confined to words, it should not be
restricted. However, no mercy should be
shown toward underground terrorist
activity."

Did the European Union err when it
imposed sanctions on Haider's Freedom
Party?

"Yes. The Austrians have a nationalist
reflex and this did more to strengthen it
than anything else."

So would you like the EU to impose
sanctions on your party?

"I won't ask them to do so; their
demonization of me is sufficient."

Did your experience in the European
Parliament change your views on Europe and
its process of unification?

"I insist that, even today, a nation
should have the right to defend its
identity, its security, its freedom and
the welfare of its citizens. I do not
agree that we ought to strip ourselves of
our independence for the sake of a
supranational organization, whose future
character is not clear to me."

How do you feel about the EU's
enlargement process?

"Now they're even talking about
Turkey's entry into the EU, and I ask,
`What does Asiatic Turkey have to do with
Europe?' Having it join the EU is an
American interest and not a European
interest. As a rule, I support a `Europe
of Nations.' In other words, a loose
confederation of sovereign states with a
common cultural denominator."

When you open your wallet today, you
have to pay with euros. What does that do
to you?

"It hurts. I call the euro `the
currency of occupation'; it's the currency
of the European Bank, of Frankfurt
[seat of the European Bank]. It
doesn't express anything for me. The
franc, on the other hand, is bound to our
national and historic identity. The loss
of our monetary independence will lead to
the loss of our budgetary independence,
and then to our political independence as
well."

You talk about "the currency of
Frankfurt." Are you concerned about the
developments in French-German
relations?

"We mustn't delude ourselves. Europe is
already `German.' Germany is the
geopolitical center of Europe. It is the
largest country on the continent,
demographically and economically, and its
influence will only grow after the Eastern
European countries are added to the EU,
since they are essentially the German
hinterland."

Is the federalization of Europe a
realistic possibility?

"I believe that is the direction in
which we are heading. It is happening
faster and faster. Now they're saying
that, as we already have the euro, we
should also establish a (European)
government. And so we see people - like
Chirac, who 10 years ago was an opponent
of Europe - proposing that Europe should
have an elected president, something that
is of course contrary to the French
constitution, of which he (Chirac) is
supposed to be the defender."

In other words, you acknowledge that
your camp, the nationalist camp, has been
defeated on the matter of Europe?

"Certainly. It's abundantly clear that
the patriotic camp lost and continues to
lose. But this doesn't mean that it will
always be this way."

Le Pen sees himself making it to the
second round of the elections. That is
what he says in public, at least.
According to his rosy scenario, he will
win 19 percent in the first round,
surpassing Socialist Prime Minister Lionel
Jospin (who will take 18 percent) and
then, on May 5, run against Chirac (whom
he predicts will get 22 percent in the
first round). Most analysts are not ready
to take this possibility seriously. Le Pen
is too old, some say. He hasn't
successfully reinvented himself, he's run
out of steam - These are some of the
explanations now being offered. Others,
like Theo Klein for instance, warn
that Le Pen is still "potentially"
dangerous: "There are enough French people
who wish to protest and find the National
Front a convenient vehicle for expressing
their protest. Keep in mind that at least
50 percent of the voters have yet to
decide whom they're going to vote
for."

Taguieff explains that any Le Pen
success in the presidential elections
would be especially dangerous because it
would enable his party to take advantage
of the momentum in the runup to the
parliamentary elections scheduled for
June.

Many believe that the current election
campaign will be Le Pen's last. The
National Front is considered a party
without a political elite. Le Pen has
always made sure to keep top members of
his party from rising any higher; he has
got rid of any charismatic and threatening
figures, and anyone who seemed likely to
emerge as his successor. For this reason,
the prevailing assessment is that his
retirement will spell the end of the
National Front.

Le Pen begs to differ: "The cemeteries
are full of indispensible people. My
central position in the movement derives
from the fact that I founded it and led it
to important achievements. But when I am
compelled to retire, someone else will
replace me. When this happens, the press
will probably publish a few long articles
about my life, but three weeks later, no
one will pay any attention to me, except
perhaps my personal friends who will raise
a toast on my birthday."

JEAN-MARIE Le Pen, 73, was born in the
port city of Trinite-sur-Mer, in the
Bretagne province, on June 20, 1928. When
he was 14, his father, a fisherman, was
killed when his ship hit a mine that had
been planted by the Germans. In 1949, he
was elected president of the radical
right-wing student union at the University
of Paris law school, where he got his
degree. In 1954, he enlisted in the
paratroops and was sent to serve in
Indochina. In 1955, he was discharged and
joined Pierre Poujade's populist movement.
At age 28, Le Pen became the youngest
member of parliament in France's history.
He reenlisted in the army the same year,
participated in the Suez campaign and was
subsequently sent to Algeria.

In 1972, he founded the National Front.
The first time he ran for president, in
1974, he got less than 1 percent of the
vote. In 1988, his support leapt to 14.4
percent, and in 1995, it went up to 15.2
percent. He has also been a member of the
European Parliament since 1984.

He is married to Jany (his
second wife) and the father of three
daughters from his first wife,
Pierrette.

"I hope that at the end of this
questionnaire, they won't put me before a
firing squad," jokes Jean-Marie Le Pen,
after he consents to "risk it" and play
the association game.

The French Revolution - "A
bloody calamity for the French people.
This revolution spawned two dreadful
bastards: Nazism and communism."

Socialism - "Today's socialist
parties are bourgeois parties whose stance
is the same as the declared stance of the
centrist parties in the past. If that's
the case, then why not socialism? Still, I
am not a socialist."

The Church - "I don't visit it
often enough. That's what my late mother
would certainly think."

Racism - "I am not a racist. I
do not understand the theory of the
superiority of the races at all, but there
is a difference between the races: Black
is not white and white is not Japanese.
That doesn't mean one race or another
should be idealized."

Xenophobia - "I am not a
xenophobe. I am a Francophile."

French culture - "I believe in
it. I think that France fulfills a unique
cultural role in the world and that the
French language greatly enriches world
culture."

European unification - "I am
totally against it."

The death penalty - "I am in
favor."

The skullcap - "The skullcap
that Catholic priests wear? I don't have
anything against the skullcap. It's a
personal choice."

The Muslim veil - "It protects
us from ugly women."

The Dreyfus Affair - "Dreyfus
was exonerated and that concluded the
affair. We should remember that among
those who sided with Dreyfus at the time
were people from the right, and that some
from the left were among his opponents."
Auschwitz - "A concentration camp that
symbolizes the persecution of the
Jews."

The gas chambers - "A method of
extermination that also became a symbol of
that persecution."

Israel - "An extraordinary
challenge in the world history of a people
that is trying to reconquer its
homeland."

Zionism - "The movement that
transformed the persistent aspiration of
the Jewish people in exile into a
practical theory, and realized it."

De Gaulle - "A controversial
personality, but the figure of
20th-century French history."

A non-Christian president in
France - "I am against it. I believe
the president should belong to the
religion and culture of the majority of
the citizens."

Colonialism - "It had a positive
influence on the development of the
populations that were subject to its
authority. Of course, one could argue at
length about whether these populations are
really happier in jeans and tennis shoes
than running barefoot in the wild. I have
no answer to that."

Zinadine Zidane (the French
soccer star, who is a Muslim of Algerian
background) - "A charming young man, a
great player. Personally, I like him."

Anne Sinclair (the Jewish
television star who sued Le Pen for
calling her "a juicy kosher butcher," and
won) - "My personal nemesis (He laughs). I
never understood why she was persecuting
me. I think she got me mixed up with
someone else (more laughter). She always
thought that I was the one using wordplay
to make a joke at her expense. But it
wasn't me, it was someone else."

Haider - "A brilliant
opportunist who used his talents to
appropriate Austrian nationalism, and
thereby gained a big political
achievement, without deriving any direct
benefit from it."

Collaborators with Hitler -
"France was an occupied country. There
were two kinds of collaborators: those who
were forced by the Nazis to collaborate
and those who viewed Hitler as the
realization of anti-communist socialism.
The latter were almost all leftists, by
the way."

Mitterrand - "A talented
statesman. He was no more of a socialist
than I am, but he knew how to use the
slogan of socialism for his own good,
almost like Jacques Chirac."

George Bush -
"A fellow who is
lucky to have had a father."

Women - "I'm in
favor."

The
above news item is reproduced without editing other
than typographical